dunnart

Borrowed from Nyunga danard (“probably Sminthopsis griseoventer”).

dunnart (plural dunnarts)

1. Any species of the genus Sminthopsis of small carnivorous marsupials that resemble mice or shrews.
   • 2005, C. Hugh Tyndale-Biscoe, Life of Marsupials, page 158,

     After the winter solstice, while the ambient temperature still remained low, nest sharing declined rapidly, due to increasing intolerance among the fat-tailed dunnarts, as breeding began.

     The food of the fat-tailed dunnart consists almost entirely of small arthropods, with a preference for spiders, termites, ants, cockroaches and weevils (Morton et al 1983).

   • 2009, Tim Winton, Silent Country: Travels through a Recovering Landscape, Robyn Davidson (editor), The Best Australian Essays 2009, page 18,

     During the original AWC^{[Australian Wildlife Conservancy]} survey, Alexander Baynes identified, in a single hollow salmon gum, 283 jaws of half-a-dozen native mammal species, mostly dunnarts, many of which were recovered from owl pellets.

   • 2010, Damian Michael, David Lindenmayer, Reptiles of the NSW Murray Catchment, page 7,

     Reptiles are an important food source for a wide range of animals, including birds and small native marsupials such as the yellow-footed antechinus and the fat-tailed dunnart.

Borrowed from English dunnart, from Nyunga danard (“probably Sminthopsis griseoventer”).

dunnart m (genitive singular dunnairt, nominative plural dunnairt)

1. dunnart